When the Celtics visited Golden State last January, they won by 40. Through three quarters, their latest visit was similarly one-sided.
Boston led by 29 with less than 12 minutes remaining Thursday night — then needed to survive a furious Warriors comeback to secure a 121-110 victory at the Chase Center in both teams’ first game back from the NBA All-Star break.
“At the end of the day, coming off the break, I thought our guys had great attention to detail, had a great purpose to what we did,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla told reporters in his postgame news conference. “And then in the last 10 1/2 minutes, Golden State took it to a different level. We were forced to be poised. We were forced to have to make plays. We were forced to have to make shots and get stops.”
Jaylen Brown, fresh off the first All-Star start of his career, was the Celtics’ top playmaker in the win, notching 23 points, 15 rebounds and a career-high 13 assists in his third triple-double of the season.
Payton Pritchard added a game-high 26 points, including eight of the 19 that Boston scored during its white-knuckle fourth quarter. Pritchard, who’s topped 20 points five times in six games since being shifted from starter to sixth man, hit six 3-pointers while tallying seven assists and six boards.
Former Celtics big men Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis both came off the bench for Golden State, which played without injured stars Stephen Curry (knee) and Jimmy Butler (torn ACL).
Horford struggled as a shooter in his first game, going 2-for-10 to finish with five points and eight rebounds. Porzingis, who was traded from Atlanta earlier this month, started slowly in his Warriors debut but scored 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting to help fuel his team’s fourth-quarter rally.
It was the oft-injured Porzingis’ first appearance since Jan. 7, and his and Horford’s first time suiting up against Boston since their departures last summer.
The win — Boston’s seventh in its last eight games — began a four-game West Coast swing for the Celtics, who will visit the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET) before finishing with a back-to-back in Phoenix and Denver next Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
Mazzulla didn’t tinker with his starting lineup during Boston’s eight-day layoff. The Celtics sent out the same top unit they used in their final games before the break: Derrick White, Baylor Scheierman, Brown, Sam Hauser and Neemias Queta. Pritchard and trade-deadline pickup Nikola Vucevic remained in their bench roles.
Those impact reserves, along with Ron Harper Jr. and Jordan Walsh, helped Boston build a 10-point lead midway through a fast-paced, high-scoring first quarter.
Harper, a two-way player who’s seen meaningful minutes in four of the Celtics’ last five games, hit both of his 3-point attempts during his opening shift. Walsh and Scheierman each hit an early three, and both added fast-break finishes at the rim. Boston did much of its first-quarter scoring in the paint, including a series of nifty spins and step-throughs by Brown.
Hot 3-point shooting kept Golden State in it through one quarter, but the Celtics sprinted ahead early in the second. They scored on their first six possessions of the period and seven of their first nine as part of a 17-2 run. Porzingis was on the wrong end of several of those Boston buckets. In his first four minutes of floor time as a Warrior, the former C’s center was a minus-15.
An overhead Hauser pass to a cutting Vucevic put Boston up 53-34. Hauser tied his season high with four assists in the game to go along with his 4-for-5 shooting from 3-point range. Vucevic posted modest stats (nine points, five rebounds, one block) but was a plus-17 in his 28 minutes, trailing only Hauser’s plus-22.
The Celtics’ lead reached 23 points later in the quarter as they spread the ball around (21 assists before halftime) and buried 11 first-half 3-pointers. By the 8:59 mark of the second quarter, all 10 Celtics players who’d entered the game had registered at least two points and one rebound.
Boston closed the half with points on five of their final six opportunities, including two threes each by Pritchard and Hauser. Pritchard added a pull-up jumper in the lane to cap a 15-point first half and send the Celtics into the locker room with a 74-51 cushion.
Pritchard was the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year last season, and he’s thrived in that role since the Anfernee Simons trade forced him to reprise it. The Celtics are 5-1 since that move — which brought Vucevic to Boston — with Pritchard averaging 25.8 points and 6.0 assists in the five victories.
“Regardless of if Payton’s coming off the bench or not, he just plays at a level,” Mazzulla told reporters. “He just has the ability to impact the game in different ways. So it doesn’t matter where he’s at in the rotation — he’s going to impact the game on both ends of the floor.”
The Celtics opened the second half with a 13-0 run and coasted through the third quarter, their lead peaking at 34 points.
One of the second-half highlights was Pritchard tying up Porzingis to force a jump ball. Neither of the ex-teammates wanted to relinquish possession, leading to a post-whistle tug-of-war that drew smiles from both players. (Pritchard, who’s generously listed at 6-foot-1, lost the ensuing jump to the 7-2 Porzingis.)
With his team up 102-73 entering the fourth quarter, Mazzulla lifted most of his starters. But he reversed course after the Warriors staged a 10-0 run that included turnovers by Scheierman and Walsh. Mazzulla reinserted White, Hauser and Vucevic, and when they couldn’t stifle Golden State’s charge, he subbed in Brown, as well.
“They test your defensive discipline on every single possession,” Mazzulla told reporters. “… I think you saw that in the fourth quarter. We had some live-ball turnovers, and they were able to get out in transition. Defending them at the highest level starts with our ability to attack them.”
A steal-and-score by Gary Payton II cut Boston’s lead to 111-99 with six minutes to play. Pritchard responded with back-to-back 3-pointers, but a Horford layup made it an 11-point game with less than three minutes remaining. Only then did the comeback bid finally stall.
Horford misfired on a corner three, and Brown hit a fadeaway on the ensuing possession. Brown then fed Queta for a dunk that iced the game with a minute to go.
